WEEK 6 · ADVANCED · ORIGINAL TAKAKI (OPT)
How does Takaki use Shakespeare's Caliban and Prospero as a metaphor for colonialism?
Takaki reads The Tempest as a metaphor: Prospero takes control of an island, while Caliban is named inferior and dispossessed. Trace how that relationship previews colonialism and how Takaki uses Caliban to describe different peoples across American history.
Use OPT for this week’s Aim Response. The videos introduce the play and the idea of “civilization”; cite Takaki’s original book and its OPT page numbers in your response.
Words of the Day flashcards →Check Yourself · summary, quiz & sequencing ↓
Week 6 · Your next steps
Read the assigned material, explain the connection in your notebook, and use the checklist to revise your response.
Study words: colonial · colonialism · critique · metaphor · -al
Open this week’s words · Use writing feedback
Use your current packet or Classroom post for dates, reading boundaries, and the required quotation edition.
01 / READ
Read
Leave with: Notes from the assigned OPT excerpts, with page numbers.
Read the assigned excerpts
Read these three passages in class. Track who controls land, who is called “savage,” and what the label permits.
- Shakespeare’s dream about AmericaOPT 27–28
Why does Takaki call the play a masquerade or prologue?
- English over IndianOPT 31–33
How does Takaki map the play’s characters onto English expansion?
- The island and dispossessionOPT 36–38
What happens to Caliban’s claim to the island, and how is Prospero’s rule defended?
IN YOUR NOTEBOOKFor each excerpt, write a brief gist and one useful OPT page number. Separate what happens in the play from Takaki’s historical interpretation.
Video background for the reading
Watch TED-Ed’s Why Should You Read The Tempest? ↗ once for the plot, then again for notes on Prospero, Caliban, and who claims the island. Rethinking Civilization ↗ helps you question what “civilized” means. These are background sources; quote and cite OPT in the Aim Response.
02 / UNDERSTAND
Understand
Leave with: A map of the metaphor and evidence that tests it.
Map Prospero and Caliban
ONE SENTENCEProspero stands for ______; Caliban stands for ______; the island stands for ______. Add one OPT detail that makes the comparison work.
Compare prosperity and civilization
Make a three-part Venn diagram: what colonizers wanted, what they said they were bringing, and where those two claims meet. Use the packet’s organizer and OPT evidence.
Words for this Aim Response
Record each meaning and word part, then write one accurate sentence that helps answer the aim.
A comparison that treats one thing as another to reveal a relationship. meta- + phor (“carry”).
A judgment that tests a claim with evidence. crit means “judge.”
A system of taking and ruling another people’s land, labor, or government. colon + -ial + -ism.
Related to a colony or the people ruling it. -ial means “relating to.”
03 / WRITE
Write
Leave with: A claim and two explained OPT quotations connected to a Key Idea.
Choose how Takaki uses the metaphor
The packet gives you three moves. Find the strongest OPT evidence for each; rank them, then choose two quotations you can explain.
1 · The map
Who stands for whom? Prospero, Caliban, and the island. Start with OPT 31, OPT 36, OPT 44 and OPT 48.
PLANFor each move: evidence + OPT page → what it proves → a Key Idea. Decide which move carries your claim and which two supply your quotations.
Build your Aim Response
- Claim: Answer how Takaki uses the two characters as a metaphor for colonialism.
- Evidence: Choose two short OPT quotations from the moves above, with their page numbers.
- Explanation: After each quotation, say what the comparison reveals about land, labor, power, or the label “savage.”
- Key Idea: Explain how economic forces, constructed race, or ideas as weapons helps interpret Takaki’s move.
- Strengthen: Add precise appositives and the assigned words where they advance your argument.
Need a topic sentence frame?
Takaki uses Prospero and Caliban to show ______. The metaphor matters because ______.
Choose the map, the preview, or the changing Caliban as the center of your own claim.
04 / CHECK
Check
Leave with: A revised explanation and correctly cited OPT evidence.
Check your response
- Does the claim answer how Takaki uses the metaphor?
- Do both quotations come from OPT, with accurate page numbers?
- After each quotation, have you explained what the evidence proves?
- Does the Key Idea explain a specific relationship, choice, or consequence?
Use videos for background. Cite Takaki (OPT) as the evidence in this response.
Check Yourself
Practice with the assigned OPT excerpts.
These checks use the Week 6 OPT excerpts. Cite OPT in the Aim Response; the videos are background.
Complete the explanation.
Takaki calls the play a for English expansion. takes control of an island, while claims it was already his. The play acts as a of colonialism. When Takaki applies Caliban to different peoples, he shows that the label “savage” is by those claiming power.
Return to the reading
OPT 27 · OPT 28 · OPT 31 · OPT 32 · OPT 33 · OPT 36 · OPT 37 · OPT 38Build Takaki’s comparison
Drag the blocks, use the arrows, or focus a block and press Alt + ↑ / ↓.
- Explain the metaphor using OPT evidence and a Key Idea.
- Read Takaki’s OPT account of English expansion and dispossession.
- Map the characters and island onto the historical relationship.
- Identify the relationship between Prospero and Caliban in the play.
- Test how Takaki reuses Caliban for other peoples.
● Correct● Close● Needs reordering
Return to the reading
OPT 27 · OPT 28 · OPT 31 · OPT 32 · OPT 33 · OPT 36 · OPT 37 · OPT 38